Every song has a story. The 9 songs on Looking Glass are no exception. This is the final installment of a blog series to talk about how each of them came about.
There are times, often late at night in the studio, when I just plug in the electric, pick some spacy effects, and start improvising. Sometimes fully realized melodies in verse/chorus structure come out. If I'm not stupid about it (which I often am), I'll remember to hit record on one of the devices so I can at least come back to it later.
Finally Home is one of those tunes I picked up from the scrapbook of these types of recordings. (I've got a lot more, believe me.) When I found it, I realized it would fit nicely with the sweet, melodic focus I was shaping up for the Looking Glass collection.
It was written on my 6-string Rickenbacker, wired into some kind of chorus/delay sound. Strangely, when I listened to the rough demo, I felt that I was trying to play three distinct parts at the same time. A lead guitar part that carried the main melody, an electric rhythm part with chordal embellishments (the sort of thing I usually record with the Rick), and some finger-picked accents, as I would do on the acoustic. So when it was time to record, I used the Gibson L6S for the lead, the Rick for the chordal stuff, and the Ovation for the acoustic accents. The picture to the right pretty much represents the starring cast.
It was a bit tricky to get all these stringed instrument sounds to work well together and not conflict. One thing we decided to add to the mix was a theremin-like synth part to play off the main melody, just to add a little bit of non-stringy accompaniment.
When it came time to give this one a title, "Finally Home" just seemed to fit. It sort of felt like that sense of relief you get after a long drive back from a vacation. It seemed to encapsulate where I'm at in my life now - settled and somewhat at peace after some tumultuous years.
So this song did seem like the perfect last song on the album. It's a bit unusual in these days of iTunes one-offs, but I thought long and hard about how to order the songs on Looking Glass. I will never give up the practice of arranging the order of songs in a collection to tell a certain story (and back up the album concept with appropriate artwork). In this case, it worked out in a very interesting way; when you play the CD in the car, "Finally Home" fades out and "I Remember Now" fades in to start over. They're both in the key of E, so the transition is seamless.
In that spirit, go get the CD, play it on your car, and keep it spinning!